One in three Britons believes in aliens

The X-Files’ Fox Mulder famously had a poster proclaiming “I want to believe” and it seems that he’s not the only one.

A new survey has found that a staggering one in three Britons believe in aliens and nearly half think they have already landed on Earth.

The survey, conducted by cinema chain Vue to mark the release of Independence Day: Resurgence, asked 2,000 people around the country what they thought about the potential for extraterrestrial life and came up with some startling results.

Ten per cent of people in the East Midlands claim to have seen a UFO and a third of them think flying saucers have landed in the UK before now. Overall, 41 per cent of those survey said they thought little grey men have landed their craft on Earth and in London the figures were even higher, with 51 per cent of people saying they believed aliens had landed here.

Most people believe that alien visitors would come in peace but many seem to have a contingency plan just in case things turn more like the first Independence Day movie. A quarter would head for the countryside if UFOs appeared above the planet, with the Scottish Highlands deemed the safest spot to start a new life. Glasgow didn’t fare so well, with only 1 per cent of people opting to head there.

And never mind photo albums, pets or a treasured reminder of a loved one recently vapourised by an alien death ray, what most Britons would save in the event of an invasion is their mobile phone. Presumably so they can stream their escape live on Periscope.

Proving that TV really can be bad for you, the survey found that most people cited The X-Files as the biggest influencer of their opinions on extraterrestrials. What’s more most bought into the ever-popular image of aliens as human-like creatures with huge eyes and telepathic powers rather than the skeletal bug-headed xenomorph from Alien.